Backup
by RandyPandy
Summary: With a Maverick attack ensuring that he had no descendants left, Albert is forced to create a backup plan. Oneshot. -Pre-ZXA, Aile/Grey Timeline-


_A oneshot that came to mind while I was thinking up ideas for A Real Hero. Unfortunately, there's no way to stick this scene in there, so I'm posting it as its own oneshot._

 _You do not need to have read A Real Hero to understand this; this story can stand alone._

* * *

Today's Maverick attack had been one of the worst, Albert mused.

A town on the outskirts of Innerpeace had been attacked, and destroyed before either the Guardians nor Slither Inc. had been able to reach it. Usually, Albert insisted that any survivors that he met be brought to him.

Publicly, this was to issue a formal apology, to meet with the victims, to let them know that Legion and the Sage Trinity cared about them and worried about their well-being. Let the public believe what they wanted to about that.

It wasn't completely a lie; he did want to meet these people, in case he ended up seeing them again. Several of these people were destined for greatness, if they survived the Game. People that were clever enough to hide or protect themselves from the Mavericks did deserve the power to back it up, to usher the world into a new age.

Only the strongest should survive the Game, and he picked his contestants from those survivors.

This time, though, there were no known survivors.

And that infuriated Albert.

One thing that he had learned to do was never to count on something, to always create a backup plan in case his plan failed. And plan that he had.

If he failed, then he had Model A, a Biometal he'd designed on rumors of a shapeshifting Reploid from the 22nd century, to inform any alternate bodies or decoys of himself of the plan. Not knowing the Reploid's name, though, he'd just named it after himself - Model A, or Model Albert.

And if both his decoy in the Sage Trinity and his original body both fell, then... well, he was still only human. It would be foolish to believe that, after two hundred years, he did not have descendants of his running around. Albert had kept careful track of all his descendants, having them submit a genetic profile each time a new member was born to ensure that, if need be, they could Megamerge with Model A and eventually Model W.

As the years went by, though, the different divisions of the family started losing that particular string of DNA, from mixing new blood in constantly. By now, there had been only one family branch left that had any genetic compatibilities. The father had married into the family and the son had not inherited the DNA and therefore they were useless.

But the mother and the daughter both had had the string of DNA. And they had lived in the recently-attacked town.

Albert almost crushed the monitor with his fist.

He had no descendants left, unless one counted Prometheus and Pandora, and he'd certainly never treated them like his children; there was no love lost between them and they would gladly destroy him if they got the opportunity and he knew it. If both bodies fell, there was no one that would be able to carry on the plan. He could always designate one of the Chosen Ones that had survived Maverick attacks, but it felt... wrong.

He had to build another alternate body for Model A, one looking very different from him. He couldn't have it too similar to himself; if someone took out both his normal and decoy body, then they would know who he looked like.

If he ended up needing no use for it, it could join Prometheus and Pandora. And if both this body and his other one fell, then he could just use it.

As he pondered a design for it, the image of a little grey-haired boy with green eyes and a scar he'd gotten from falling and cutting his cheek came to mind. His real son, Grey, exactly how he had been the last time he had seen him, long dead from the lifespan limits set on the populace. That would be the perfect design.

Albert glanced once more at the screen that had the data of his youngest descendant, the daughter, no more than three years old, with silver hair and green eyes. Her name had been Asherah, a fine name. A pity that she hadn't lived to do her duty, whether it be taking Model A and continuing the Game or producing a few more descendants; but if he'd had to hasten the Game of Destiny in her lifetime, he would have gladly kept her around provided she had obeyed him.

...He really was getting old and sentimental.

* * *

Twelve years later, his foolish sentimentality came back to bite him.

When the process of programming his backup body was interrupted, he had angrily sent Pandora to dispose of it, and Prometheus to retrieve Model A. A real shame, but he could build another one, even if it took another thirteen years. But the longer he remained without any backup, the better the chance of the Game ending right then and there, and he was at least going to keep Model A near him until he could finish it.

But Grey had not only escaped and found refuge in the Hunters' Guild, but had Megamerged with Model A, effectively preventing Prometheus and Pandora from taking it.

Prometheus had mentioned that he'd been interrupted by some Hunters who challenged him for it (with more colorful language), and Albert, to humor himself, had checked on the identities of the Hunters that had gone on that mission. There'd been four of them, and three of them had gone missing.

One of the missing Hunters had caught his eye: a girl called Ashe, silver-haired and green-eyed, found by Hunters not long after the Maverick attack in that town twelve years ago. They'd never brought her to meet Legion other than getting her registered as an orphan as the Hunters' Guild was too far out of the way and trips to Legion were pricey; Albert, not knowing due to the fact that Hunters' picked up orphaned relatives all the time, had not insisted on meeting her like he did with all survivors.

He hadn't even realized it; his descendant Asherah had, somehow, survived the Maverick attack all those years ago. He hadn't had to build the backup body due to her being around - in fact, building the backup body and trying to recover Model A had only made more trouble for him.

But it was too late now. Asherah was missing thanks to Prometheus (if she had even survived him) so she couldn't take either Model W or Model A, and Grey had just made his core go critical. Bested by his own defective backup, based in appearance on his long-dead son, with his core programming.

The irony was beating him around the head.

"Goodbye, ultimate Defective! You can have your gentle peace... and leisurely rot in it!"


End file.
